Need help with installing KDE

[soccercisco]

dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg will bring up a pseudo-GUI which will ask you questions about your server devices (i.e., mouse, keyboard, and monitor). Usually it's pretty good at recognizing directly your devices, however, here are some recommendations (this will all make sense as you go through the GUI):

1) for the video-card choose either vesa or ati for the drivers (you can type the model of your card when instructed to do so as well).

2) for your keyboard pc104 is the standard for most US English keyboards, you can choose from the "full list" if you want.

3) for your mouse, usually the first option works (might need to do a quick google on it).

4) be careful with the sync ranges of the monitor (especially the horizontal), be conservative if you are unsure of your specs.

Good luck,

[MacPC]

Thanks again.

Soccercisco, I did go through the steps as you descripted when I install XF86Config. When I try to start X, it complained something about the mouse, it says something wasn't loaded, but the screen went by too quickly, I couldn't read exactly what it says, so I commented out the section about the mouce in the XF86Config file. After that it complained about the video.

BTW, I didn't state clearly on my last post, my box doesn't have a fancy video card, (don't I wish.) The 256M is the max out RAM in the box.

OK, after work today, I will get rid of XF86 and install xorg, (I used xorg on Ubuntu, seems to work fine.)

Just curious, what's the difference between xorg and XF86?

What makes one distro of Linux more powerful than the other?

Sorry for the dumb questions, as you can tell, I am a Linux newbie coming from Windows and Mac. Learn a lot from people like you guys. Appreciate all the helps.

MacPC.

[soccercisco]

Sorry for the dumb questions

In a cliche manner: "The only dumb questions are the ones that are not asked..." I also had to learn sometime, right?

Just curious, what's the difference between xorg and XF86?

X.org branched of XFree86 in 2004 due to disagreements on licensing for the release of (I believe) XFree86 X4.4.0. This is typical in the "free software" world, but nothing to worry about. Linux is so powerful that it is hard for the developers not to make any money (and turn into Gazillionars). THat's why I admire the developers of Debian (all-volunteer work!).

People who started XOrg were also discontent from the slow development of XFree86. X.org is undergoing a rather faster rate of development, and so they include (in general) the latest drivers out there.

For getting you up and running (if xorg fails):

You can try startx 2> ~/myerrorslog.post and it will create a file in your home directory called myerrorslog.post and you can view exactly what's going on.

I once encountered the mouse detection problem, but I can't remember what I did (I will google about it once I get the exact error from the file I mentioned above--post the output on this thread).

What makes one distro of Linux more powerful than the other?

Well, the distros are a collection of "packages" (i.e., application software) built around the Linux Kernel. So the matter of "power" depends on the user. For instance, Ubuntu and SuSe (as well as LiveCD distros) are "powerful" for newbies, since they hardly require hardware tweaking. On the other hand, Debian and Red-Hat are powerful for servers (since the software applications they include are geared towards this purpose). So the question is not easily answered. It depends on what you want to use it for. Though, that doesn't mean that other distros are not capable of handling your needs. In my opinion (IMO), unless you are a power user running an IT department, or a server with 10,000+ databases, you are more than likely to settle with the distro that better suites your "whims."

Hope this helps! I will keep an eye out for your reply.

[MacPC]

OK, start from ground zero.

I am not sure if I am doing this right. I was going to install xorg, so I figured I will remove everything related to xfree86, so I did this:

apt-get --purge remove x-window-system
apt-get --purge remove xsrver-xfree86 xbase-clients xfonts-base xfonts-100dpi xfonts-75dpi xutils
apt-get --purge remove kde kdm

Am I doing this right so far?

When I try to install xorg

apt-get install xserver-xorg

I get this message:

Couldn't find package xserver-xorg

So how do I install xorg?

MacPC

[craigevil]

You might want to take a look at the Howto here:
Xorg For Debian (Howto)-Debian Linux Help-Linux Forums
http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/deb...ian-howto.html

[MacPC]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAArgh!!! Still not working!

Well, I followed the link, http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/deb...ian-howto.html. I did the following steps,

typed in deb http://debian.linux-systeme.com sid main and deb-src http://debian.linux-systeme.com sid main to /etc/apt/sources.list.

did a #apt-get update,

I didn't think X was running but I did a Kill X anyways, it says nothing to kill, then I get to # apt-get install xserver-xorg,

it says Couldn't find package xserver-xorg. Now what?

I am wondering in my previous attempt to remove xfree86 and the malfunctioned kde and kdm, did I remove too many files? Perhaps that's the problem. Here are the files I purged and removed:

apt-get --purge remove x-window-system
apt-get --purge remove xsrver-xfree86 xbase-clients xfonts-base xfonts-100dpi xfonts-75dpi xutils
apt-get --purge remove kde kdm

Thanks

MacPC.

[soccercisco]

This is in reply to this (hadn't refreshed in a while):

OK, start from ground zero.

I am not sure if I am doing this right. I was going to install xorg, so I figured I will remove everything related to xfree86, so I did this:

apt-get --purge remove x-window-system
apt-get --purge remove xsrver-xfree86 xbase-clients xfonts-base xfonts-100dpi xfonts-75dpi xutils
apt-get --purge remove kde kdm

Am I doing this right so far?

When I try to install xorg

apt-get install xserver-xorg

I get this message:

Couldn't find package xserver-xorg

So how do I install xorg?

MacPC

Yep, so far so good...

Couldn't find package xserver-xorg

It's my bad, because I forgot you are using the stable release of Debian (Sarge). This version uses xfree86. XOrg is included in the almost-stable version (Etch). Each version of Debian has a codename based on Toy Story.

One would figure that XFree86 being around for a while would have been better suited to handle your video card...

So one suggestion I can make (since I haven't learned howto generate my own drivers yet) is to change your /etc/sources.list in order upgrade your version (ask me if you don't know how to do this) to etch.

Then a simple < apt-get dist-upgrade > (as root) will do the trick. And then you'll be able to < apt-get install xserver-xorg xorg > packages.

I looked on the ATI website, and on the net for the drivers for your card and could not find them (the Linux ones). One idea is to check if somebody has tweaked the Windows ones (available at ATI.com). I know they do this with other PCI devices (e.g., ndiswrapper for wireless networking cards). A second one is sending a Private Message to Antidrugue (Linux Guru, knowledgeable on ATI) saying that you don't have Linux drivers for your ATI video card, what can you do?

I would try the dist-upgrade since you already know that Ubuntu, which uses XOrg, works with your card.

Sorry I can't help you further. Let me know of any other questions!

Regards,

[soccercisco]

Now, in regards to this:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAArgh!!! Still not working!

Well, I followed the link, http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/deb...ian-howto.html. I did the following steps,

typed in deb http://debian.linux-systeme.com sid main and deb-src http://debian.linux-systeme.com sid main to /etc/apt/sources.list.

did a #apt-get update,

I didn't think X was running but I did a Kill X anyways, it says nothing to kill, then I get to # apt-get install xserver-xorg,

it says Couldn't find package xserver-xorg. Now what?

I am wondering in my previous attempt to remove xfree86 and the malfunctioned kde and kdm, did I remove too many files? Perhaps that's the problem. Here are the files I purged and removed:

apt-get --purge remove x-window-system
apt-get --purge remove xsrver-xfree86 xbase-clients xfonts-base xfonts-100dpi xfonts-75dpi xutils
apt-get --purge remove kde kdm

Thanks

MacPC.

You changed your sources.list to include Sid, the unstable version of Debian. I strongly recommend to use Etch instead, which is the unstable (i.e., the next stable) release.

The sources.list file includes the mirrors (download sites) to obtain Debian. On the www.debian.org website, you can find the full list, and you can choose one close to where you live (not as trivial as one might hope, so feel free to ask for help on this). In your original mirror address, the one that said "stable" or "sarge", you can try substituting these words with "etch" and/or "unstable", it all depends on the format that the particular mirror uses.

Good luck!

[MacPC]

Hi,

Thank you tho for all the helps. I couldn't get Debian to work. It takes up way too much of my time to no avail. All I wanted is to get familiar with KDE, so I downloaded Mepis, It just works right after I installed it on the same machine which Debian gives me a hard time, no fuzz, no hair pulling. I even installed it on the VM on my Windows 2K box, works like a champ! Just the way I like it.

How much different is Debian from Mepis? As far as being more powerful, is it a matter of configuration? If I understand correctly, they both use the same kernal so I don't see why Mepis can't do the same thing as Debian.

MacPC